Blame Game
by SerenityCourage
Summary: Tony and Tim let Abby take the blame for their mistake and learn that you can't milk a scapegoat. Will contain spanking.
1. Chapter 1

**_AN: My husband has Chloe at the Monster-In-Law's house for the week, and I have plenty of Margarita mix. Yep, time to write. _**

"I hope you know that when Gibbs gets here, neither of you are going to live very long."

"Not if a certain little lab bat keeps her mouth shut."

Abby chuckled lowly before using an imaginary key to lock her lips and tossing it over her shoulder. Paperclips went flying as she messily cleared the corner of Tony's desk and plopped herself down.

From across the room, Ziva cleared her throat pointedly, raising a thin eyebrow.

"Well," Tony amended, "A lab bat and an assassin."

Smirking, the Israeli woman began to casually examine her fingernails. "I will not keep quiet for you, Tony."

The color flooded out of the man's face, leaving it pale with a horrorstruck expression plastered firmly onto it.

"But I will for McGee. Mostly because I am still unsure how you managed to con him into this."

She smiled innocently. Grinning, Abby gave her a thumbs up and sniggered when the other woman winked back.

"McGee didn't have to be conned into anything. You see, Agent David, our little Timmy has a wildcat inside of him," here Tony paused to do a lively reenactment of a large cat's growl, complete with hand gestures, "Just waiting to be released. Through mischief, of course. Not wild sex. Not our Tim."

He may have gone on, but at that moment he was hit on the side of the head, not by Gibbs, but by a small bolt – one of the many that had recently been removed from the support legs on Gibbs's chair.

"See? Wildcat! Nice aim, McGoo!"

"Just be glad it was a bolt, Tony," McGee snapped coolly, "And not the wrench."

"I really need to come up here more often," said Abby, as she watched her coworkers antics as if she were watching a tennis match. Her pigtails swung as she whipped her head from side to side, trying not to miss anything.

"We'd be glad to have ya, Abs."

Abby almost fell off the desk as Gibbs came striding in behind her. Attempting to be as unobtrusive as possible, McGee scrambled to throw the bolts and the wrench into his desk drawer. Gibbs didn't seem to notice.

The entire team stayed exactly as they were, not moving a muscle or breathing too loudly as Gibbs made his way toward the chair. Even the girls, who had nothing to do with the entire endeavor, were anxious to see the results. Silently, they hoped that Gibbs wouldn't be hurt in the fall, and that their friends wouldn't be hurt in the aftermath.

Fidgeting and twisting, the resident Goth finally decided that she couldn't bear to watch and hurried out of the room, calling a harried goodbye over her shoulder as she went.

Gibbs looked at her retreating back, a concerned expression on his face.

"Everything alright with her?"

The three younger agents all glanced at each other, before McGee finally found a response.

"I think she left something running in the lab, Boss. She was working with some pretty sensitive samples and I think she wanted to be there right when they finished."

Not quite satisfied, Gibbs resolved to check on her later and sat down on his chair.

Which promptly broke down on the floor. Sending Gibbs down with it.

The room went silent. Gibbs had disappeared from view and had not risen. The agents would have gone to check on him, but were too horrorstruck to move. While Tony and Tim had taken every precaution possible to avoid detection, it had never actually occurred to them that they would _actually_ get away with it.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, a large hand reached up and clamped onto the edge of the desk. Gibbs rose slowly, a deceptively calm look on his face. His hands clenched on the desk, revealing his true feelings as he uttered one small but terrifying word.

"Who?"

No one spoke.

Gibbs head turned towards the elevator, remembering Abby's earlier behavior. The horrified agents suddenly realized exactly who Gibbs's biggest suspect was.

Four sets of eyes swung to the now opening elevator doors, signaled by the ding of the bell. Abby stepped out slowly, hesitant because of the earlier trouble, but blissfully unaware of just how bad things were.

"Hey guys," she said weakly, realizing that she had walked in on a slightly tense moment. _Damn. _She thought that everything would have been over with by now. "So, how are…things?"

She squirmed under Gibbs's stern gaze, unsure why it was being directed towards her.

"Gibbs? Is something wrong?"

"Well, Abbs. I guess that would depend on if you consider my chair breaking _wrong_."

"Oh. Your chair broke?"

"Yeah, it did. Do you happen to know anything about that?"

"Like what?"

"Like how it happened."

Abby blinked, confused. A quick glance at the rest of her coworkers told her exactly what was going on.

"_You think that I did this?_"

Gibbs was silent.

"Tell him! You guys know that-"

She cut off after catching sight of the agents. Watching her male coworkers in disbelief, Ziva made a small noise of protest, hoping to urge them into action. Tony and Tim refused to make eye contact with anyone, keeping their eyes on their desks.

"Sorry, Abbs," Tony said quietly.

Giving a broken, slightly hysterical laugh, Abby turned back to Gibbs.

"Yeah, Gibbs. I-I did it."

There. She'd done it. But it didn't matter because any second now Tony and Tim were going to step in and tell Gibbs the truth.

Any second now.

Deflating slightly, she realized that it wasn't going to happen.

_I'm sorry, Abby_, Tony thought, trying to force his mouth to form the right words. He could swear that even her pigtails seemed miserable, and out of the blue he had the urge to hug her. Tightly. But it was too late, and Gibbs was already leading her out of the building.

Once Gibbs and Abby were alone in the elevator, Gibbs tugged her close to his side and used his other hand to sign to her.

_I'm disappointed, Abby._

Abby blinked back tears and thought about her friends up in the bullpen, before signing back.

_Trust me, I know how you feel._


	2. Chapter 2

The atmosphere in the car was tense, if not frenzied. After sitting in stunned silence for a few long, mortified moments, Tony and Tim had immediately chased after their boss and lab rat. But the others had gotten a head start, so by the time they got to the parking garage, both of their coworkers were gone. The agents had rushed to the humble Gibbs abode, and after finding it empty, began to panic. Now desperate they were on their way to Abby's apartment, hoping to step in before Gibbs made any..._rash_ _decisions_.

"I don't feel good about this, Tony," said Tim from his place in the passenger seat.

"You think I do? Look, we just have to find Gibbs and fess up before anything happens to Abby. Then, they'll both forgive us and everything will be fine."

"It's been over an hour. You honestly think that he hasn't punished her already?"

Tony grimaced and stared down at the steering wheel, guilt rising in his throat. "Shut up, McGee."

When they pulled into the parking lot, they both looked for Gibbs car, knowing that Abby's hearse was still tucked into its spot at NCIS. It was a little after two in the afternoon, and most of Abby's neighbors were at work, making it easy for the men to see that there was no trace of the car in question.

"Where else would they go," Tony muttered, more to himself than Tim. He was just about to put the car back in gear, when McGee slapped his hand away.

"Look."

He was pointing to one of the third floor windows. A figure was now visible, curled up in the window seat with the curtains pulled back. Small, but dark. Definitely a woman. Tony didn't have to be able see them to guess that the figure probably had her hair tied in pigtails.

"Abby," he sighed. "But no Gibbs. What are the chances that he just left her stew for a while?"

"He fell on his ass and his chair broke. I think he did enough stewing for the both of them."

Not having any sort of argument for that, Tony continued to stare at the third floor window. His phone went off again, another scathing message from Ziva undoubtedly, but he just tucked it into his pocket without answering. He could deal with her later. _Hopefully_.

"Come on, McGoo. Let's go apologize."

They made their way up to the third floor, opting to take the stairs to give themselves more time to prepare. Having both been there before, they found her apartment easily and waited anxiously outside her door.

"Alright, Probie. Knock."

"Hell no. You knock."

"I'm the Senior field agent here, and I'm ordering you to knock."

The door behind them swung open,making the two men jump. An elderly woman slowly came into the hallway and smiled brightly at them.

"The walls aren't very thick, dears," she said, using her cane to bang on Abby's door. "If I could hear you, she probably did, too."

She saluted them both, retreated to her apartment, and slammed the door. The agents gave a delayed salute after the door had already slammed shut, and turned back to Abby's apartment.

"Abby? Open the door. We want to talk," Tom called.

A fierce voice sounded from the other side of the wooden door. "What's the password?"

Sharing a look, the men shrugged.

"We don't know the password, but we're very-"

"Caf-Pow!" Tony interjected.

Tim spun to face him. "_What_?"

"The password. I took a guess," the older man explained, before raising his voice slightly, "Forensics!"

"DiNozzo! Would you forget about the stupid password?"

"What in the name of Sam Hill is going on out here?"

Both heads snapped up when Abby's neighbors began to file out of their apartments. Tony hadn't expected many people to be home at that time of day, but he was proved wrong as the hallway became crowded with elderly men and women, housewives, teenagers home on summer break, and one man that looked as if he'd rather have a joint than a job. All seeming just the _slightest_ bit ticked off that their neighbor was being seemingly harassed. They began to invade the agents' space, crowding around the door.

"Abby? Honey, did these men do something to you?" asked a slender woman who was bouncing a baby on her hip.

"Yes!"

_Shit._

The crowd stirred and moved in closer, prompting the men to bolt for the elevator and furiously slam the button to close the doors. Halfway down, Tony slapped the stop button to give them some time to breathe.

Tim frowned. "That didn't go as well as I hoped it would."

"I was expecting something similar," Tony said, shrugging his shoulders. "Something feels off though."

Silence enveloped the elevator, weighing heavily on their shoulders. Finally, Tony's eyebrows raised in realization, and he reached back to slap the back of his own head, quickly subjecting Tim to the same treatment.

"That was it."

* * *

If they were nervous when they were in Abby's parking lot, then they were practically hysterical in Gibbs's driveway. Gibbs was sure to be disappointed a the prank itself, but add in _lying_ and things got

a thousand times worse. And letting Abby take the fall? They'd be lucky to leave the house with their asses still attached.

Gibbs didn't seem surprised to see them on his front porch, but sometimes it was hard to tell with Gibbs. He lead them into the kitchen, silently offering them coffee which they declined. His eyes followed them as they seated themselves at the kitchen table.

Neither man seemed eager to speak, leaving Gibbs bewildered. He didn't think too deeply on it, being preoccupied with Abby's earlier behavior. It wasn't like her to get into trouble just for the sake of it, and even after the prank she had been acting strangely. She'd been more upset by her punishment than she usually was, refusing to be comforted afterward. Silence was not something that he usually associated with Abby, but she had not spoken a word to him, seeming almost _angry_. It was enough to concern him, and he was planning to visit her apartment later on. Maybe after she'd cooled down she would be willing to talk to him.

"What's going on, boys?"

The two agents shared a long glance before Tony finally gained the courage to speak.

"Abby didn't mess with your chair, boss. We did."

The words didn't seem to faze him for a moment. He blinked once, a frown slowly pulling on his face. He wasn't sure that he believed what he was hearing. Tim seemed to sense his doubt because his hand dipped into his pocket and pulled back to reveal a small wrench and a few shiny, metallic bolts. And all of a sudden, he felt sick.

_No wonder Abbs was so pissed._

Gibbs was practically shaking. It was startling to find out that he'd punished one of his surrogate children wrongly. Especially the one that he usually had the hardest time being stern with. Guilt tore at his heart, along with righteous anger. This shouldn't have happened.

* * *

So far, today had not been a particularly productive day in the life of Anthony DiNozzo. He'd played a prank on his boss, and it hadn't even been a very good one. The woman that he loved like a baby sister was subsequently blamed for his prank, leading to a mob of women, children, elderly, and stoners attacking him. To top it off, he was about to be spanked. Possibly fatally.

On the other side of the couch, Tim was not fairing any better when he thought about his day. It had started out nicely enough, teaming up with Ziva to tease Tony. Then, pushed his luck by not chickening out of the prank that Abby had paid for. Things had gone careening downhill from there and were undoubtedly about to come to an abrupt and painful stop.

They wouldn't have all this time to contemplate their days if Gibbs had said a word in the past half hour. Unfortunately, he hadn't. Leaving Tony and Tim to try to sit without fidgeting. This whole stare at DiNozzo and McGee thing was getting old fast. At least, in their eyes it was.

"Gibbs? We're sorry," Tony ventured.

The words seemed to snap Gibbs back to consciousness, cutting through thick haze of guilt, frustration, and ire.

"I know," he said, shoulders slumping as he seemed to deflate. "I am, too."

* * *

**_I realize this isn't a very good excuse for taking such a long time, but in my defense, toddlers are time consuming._**


End file.
